


Strange Reunions

by linndechir



Category: Frey & McGray Series - Oscar de Muriel, Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Reunions, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27785224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: The week had started quite pleasantly. Frey had been looking forward to catching up with his old acquaintance Dr Reid, who had come to Edinburgh for a series of lectures. But then McGray just had to drag him into a ridiculous case that he claimed involved vampires.
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid, Ian Frey/Adolphus McGray
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Strange Reunions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



Up until Thursday night, I’d been having an unusually pleasant week. We’d finished our most recent case several days ago, so I had some time to myself – reading a few frankly terrible novels, enjoying fine wine and cigars, and sharing some of McGray’s excellent Scotch with him on one evening or the other. We’d been surprisingly friendly recently, especially when we weren’t working, and as reluctant as I was to admit it, I’d started to enjoy his company somewhat, at least on some of those evenings. Of course he was still a dreadful maniac and his accent made my ears hurt, but we’d grown close in a way I supposed was unavoidable when one almost got killed together as often as we had in the short, but eventful time since I’d been forced to move to this horrid city.

To improve my mood further, an old acquaintance of mine was in town. I’d only read about it in the newspaper on Wednesday morning – a guest lecture at the medical college of the University of Edinburgh by Dr Jonathan Reid, a renowned surgeon and expert on haematology. Now it would have been an exaggeration to claim that Dr Reid and I were friends, but we knew each other socially. We’d run in the same circles in London, and I think my father and his had had some business dealings with each other back in the day – the old Mr Reid had passed so long ago that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever met him in person. During my ill-fated time at Oxford trying to study medicine myself, I’d run into Dr Reid a few times and I’m not too proud to confess that I quite admired the man. He was only a decade older than me and had already been very well regarded by the medical community when I’d been a student, both for his practical skills and for his research. Even back then he’d been invited by one of my professors to present his research in a few lectures, and listening to him had been quite engaging. He was truly a man of science, passionate about his work and dedicated to helping his patients. In short, he was the kind of doctor I would have hoped to become if I had continued to pursue that path.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t actually seen him in several years. Even before my miserable exile to Edinburgh, when I’d still been a constant in London society, Dr Reid had become somewhat of a recluse, politely but firmly declining any invitation that was sent to him. The why was hardly a secret, though still frequently discussed by gossip mongers – within a short amount of time he’d lost his sister, along with her husband and her newly-born child, and then his old mother. Surely the grief of watching one’s entire remaining family die was reason enough why a man would not be in the mood for parties. But if he was mourning, he was certainly doing so for longer than most people, because he’d never truly returned into society after that. Other rumours said that his experiences as a military doctor had left deep marks on him, that he’d become somewhat odd and strange – that I found hard to believe, for Dr Reid had always a perfectly charming gentleman. 

So I was both simultaneously eager to see him again and renew our acquaintance and quite relieved that whatever darkness he’d found himself in, he had apparently recovered enough to travel all the way to Scotland to engage with the medical community there.

As I took my seat in the lecture hall and watched him go up on the podium – I’d decided that a chat could wait until after he was done – another explanation for Dr Reid’s strange absence occurred to me. He looked quite ill. He was much paler than I remembered him, the kind of sickly pallor of those who’ve been bed-ridden for months, and even at a distance his eyes seemed blood-shot as if he had some kind of infection. Then again, he had continued to work as a surgeon all these years, and even now he held himself with a straight-backed strength that I would not have associated with a truly sick man. Dr Reid had always cut an imposing figure – as tall as McGray, at a guess, and just as broad-shouldered – and despite his sickly countenance, that hadn’t changed.

Of course I was not indelicate enough to ever enquire after such matters directly, but I admitted to some curiosity and hoped that I might find out more about what he’d been up to in these years since we’d last spoken.

But of course, my good fortune ran out that very evening, because things simply could not go my way for more than a few days at a time, it seems. Halfway through the lecture – which was every bit as interesting as I remembered Dr Reid’s work being, although I had to admit that I wasn’t quite up to date on the research he was talking about – an insistent hiss from the side tore through my concentration. McGray was standing between the rows of seats, drawing angry glares from attending doctors and scientists and ignoring them, while he gestured for me to come along. It had been a while since I’d been _this_ irritated to see the man. I briefly considered telling him to bugger off with a rude gesture, but I knew that McGray was not familiar with the word “no”. If I declined, he’d simply make a scene, embarrass me in front of everyone present, interrupt Dr Reid’s lecture even more, and then complain afterwards that all this had been _my_ fault.

With a sigh I stood from my seat, mumbled an excuse as I squeezed my way past the elderly gentleman who was sitting next to me, and turned to follow McGray out of the hall. As I did so, Dr Reid – who’d of course noticed the small commotion – caught my eye and gave me a polite nod. I felt myself flush as I returned it, for I had of course hoped that he wouldn’t recognise me in just this moment.

“What on Earth is so urgent?” I hissed at McGray once we’d returned to the atrium.

“We’ve got a case, Percy. Victim sucked completely dry, not a drop of blood in him.” Even McGray had the good sense to lower his voice before he added, “Vampires.”

Despite myself, I felt a chill go down my spine. Ever since the Koloman case, those particular tales of horror made me somewhat uncomfortable. Yes, there had been entirely natural explanations for what had been going on with the Koloman family, because vampires did not exist any more than goblins and faeries and demons, but I still didn’t enjoy the dreadful things my imagination conjured up at the idea of someone being entirely exsanguinated.

“Or simply a murderer going for some sort of ritualistic killing, for example,” I said, trying to focus on real things. Science. Facts. Not McGray’s phantasms.

“Wait until you see the body.” McGray sounded excited, the way he always did when he had a new case to obsess over, but even in his voice there was a hint of disgust. “From what I was told, it doesn’t look like anything a human being did, no matter how deranged.”

I’d been looking forward to an interesting, intellectually stimulating evening, followed hopefully by a drink or two with an intelligent gentleman whom I hadn’t seen in far too long and whose company had always brought a certain warmth to my chest. Instead I was being dragged off by Nine-Nails to the morgue, to look at a gruesomely torn apart corpse and then listen to him rant and ramble about creatures that didn’t exist. My good mood was thoroughly ruined by the time we’d left the university grounds, and that was before things got truly bad.

* * *

Our investigation brought us – after a long, sleepless night and an equally exhausting day, filled with endless ramblings about whatever McGray had dug up about vampires, which he insisted existed even if the Kolomans had simply been human beings afflicted by a rare illness – to Greyfriars Kirkyard in the middle of the next night. It was freezing cold, one of those February nights that don’t feel like winter will ever end, with fog hanging so low we could barely see past the next tombstone. Even while knowing that there were no blood-sucking creatures stalking through the night, the atmosphere was more than a little chilling.

We’d been following some trails through half the city until we’d ended up here, but in the fog and the dark it was hard to see anything at all. I’d been arguing with McGray for the past half hour because it seemed pointless to trudge through the dark instead of going home and resting before we continued with our case – a reasonable argument that he, of course, stubbornly ignored, while insulting me with increasing creativity for being soft, lazy, and cowardly – when our bickering was cut short by a blood-curdling scream. It did not, in fact, sound like something out of a human throat.

Nine-Nails and I started running towards it at the same time, though the strange echoes on the cemetery made it hard to tell if we were even running in the right direction. There were sounds of a fight now – steps and a loud crash, rough noises of exertion and then the sickening squish of flesh being ripped open that told us that we had, in fact, headed in the right direction.

As we turned a corner, we saw something big and only vaguely human-shaped go to the ground with a last one of those horrifying screams, and over it stood a man with quite possibly the biggest sword I’d ever seen in my life, including in museums. He whirled around to face us, but his posture relaxed a little when he saw us. Clearly he’d been expecting something worse than two police detectives catching him red-handed. He was maybe a few years older than me, scruffy but handsome despite that, wearing old, slightly tattered clothes that looked even worse with all the blood splattered on them. He lowered the scarf that had been covering his mouth when we’d arrived. If we’d caught our murderer, he didn’t react like any criminal I’d ever run into.

“Put down that sword, laddie,” McGray said, raising his gun. The man seemed to consider that for a moment and then simply stuck the tip of the sword into the soft ground, raising his hands to show that they were empty.

“You’ll want to keep walking, trust me,” the man said in an unpleasant drawl. He was _Irish_. I made a face. As if being surrounded by all these Scotsmen wasn’t bad enough.

“We’re the police, ye clod, we dinnae make it a habit to walk away from a murder,” Nine-Nails said. I wasn’t too sorry to have him by my side, because that man did not look like he would willingly let himself get arrested. And when it came to fights, there were far worse men to have on your side than McGray.

“Murder? That requires a human victim, and I promise you this thing is not human.” He kicked the shape at his feet – we’d both been so distracted by the sword that we hadn’t paid that much attention to it, and I had to admit now that it looked more like a beast than a person. There was something vaguely humanoid about its shape, but it was far too large, and the long claws looked more like a bear’s. McGray frowned, lowering the gun.

The man sighed. “Look, I know how this goes with your lot. Just tell me how much you want to keep walking.”

For a moment I forgot about the beast lying there in the half-frozen mud and stared at the man.

“Are you trying to bribe us?” Which was admittedly stating the very obvious, but I’d never met anyone who’d been quite so brazen about it. The man, who’d so far kept his attention on McGray, looked me up and down from head to toe, his eyes lingering on my fine winter coat, and then he scoffed.

“Wouldn’t be the first one, by the looks of you.”

I couldn’t, nor did I want to, hold back the noise of indignation that escaped my throat, even as McGray cackled next to me.

“I’ll have you know that I’m a gentleman! And for all of Nine-Nails’ many other, numerous faults, he at least isn’t corrupt.”

I wasn’t entirely sure why I was defending him, but somehow this strange Irishman had managed to make me dislike him more than even McGray within minutes. He was still standing there beside the beast he’d killed, still within reach of that giant sword he’d swung so easily, and watched us out of icy-blue eyes in the moonlight. 

“Nine-Nails?” he repeated, his eyes fixating on McGray again. “You that detective that works on supernatural cases?”

There was no scorn on his voice, but genuine interest, and predictably McGray straightened up a little and puffed out his chest.

“Aye.”

“Your fancy colleague here know about those?”

“Know, sure, but believing is another matter,” McGray replied with a glance at me, and it was hard not to remind him that maybe we should be questioning this stranger, not the other way around.

“You want something to believe in, just look at this.” The man nudged the beast again with his boot, and both McGray and I stepped closer curiously, especially once the man had taken a step backwards and away from that giant sword – though I somehow doubted it was the only weapon he carried.

“What _is_ that?” I asked. It didn’t look like any animal I’d ever seen in my life, but like some strange mixture of man and beast, though certainly more on the beastly side, with those long claws and upon closer inspection absolutely terrifyingly long fangs. McGray’s babbling about vampires came to mind again.

“A Vulkod,” the Irishman said, like that was supposed to mean anything to either of us. After a moment, he offered McGray his hand, which he’d cursorily wiped on his trousers. “Geoffrey McCullum, of the Guard of Priwen. Might have heard of us.”

I certainly hadn’t, but McGray’s eyes lit up as he took this McCullum’s hand.

“Priwen,” he repeated. “Ye those vampire hunters, right? I dinnae know there were any of ye up in Scotland.”

“Vampire hunters?” I interjected. “Oh, don’t be absurd, both of you! I’m sure our victim was not drained by a vampire, I’m sure this _thing_ is some kind of animal and not a creature out of a pulp novel, and this gentleman here should really be escorted to the nearest police station!”

“Victim?” McCullum perked up. He hadn’t offered to shake my hand, for which I was quite grateful, because I was reasonably sure he still had blood on his. He wiped his hands on his trousers again, which looked like this wasn’t the first time he was doing that.

“Aye, that’s why we’re here. Followed the trails from where the victim was found – young man, drained of every drop of blood, bite marks on his neck,” McGray explained, like we’d run into a friendly colleague, and not into a strange Irish madman with a sword. Again I tried to object, but he and McCullum seemed intent on ignoring me. As so often, I took the path of least resistance in the hopes that we might at least get the job done. After all, it wasn’t impossible to work with McGray, despite his delusions. Somewhere underneath them all, he was an intelligent man, though I wasn’t sure yet if the same could be said about this McCullum.

“Whatever bit our victim can’t have been this beast,” I pointed out. “They were small bite marks, far too small for those fangs. So whatever your theory about vampires is, it really isn’t holding up. Even aside from the fact that vampires don’t exist.”

“Is he always like that?” McCullum asked McGray, and if I’d hoped for any kind of loyalty from him in the face of a man who apparently shared his inane opinions, I was about to be sorely disappointed, because all McGray did was roll his eyes and say, “Unfortunately.”

“Not that I don’t envy you your ignorance, Inspector …?”

“Frey,” I said testily.

“Inspector Frey, but this thing here is not an animal. And it’s not alone, which is why I’m here in the first place. Tracked an Ekon to Edinburgh – that’s a different kind of vampire, the kind that leaves neat, pretty little bite marks, but is just as deadly – and those sooner or later attract vermin like this one. The way a big wolf doesn’t take long to find itself a pack. If you’re not familiar with these things, you’ll want my assistance, or we’re going to have a lot of corpses here very soon.”

“You mean in addition to this one?”

“I mean in addition to the one you got in your morgue.” McCullum was glaring at me out of those very blue eyes. He had an iron determination about him that reminded me of McGray, but he was missing McGray’s more manic side – that tinge of madness that so unsettlingly reminded me of his poor sister. No, McCullum seemed perfectly sane despite the nonsense he was spouting, and that thought sent another chill down my spine. The foggy night, that ghastly beast, the painful memories of the Koloman case. That was all this was.

My suggestion to take this heavily armed stranger in for questioning was quickly dismissed, because Nine-Nails had clearly already decided that McCullum was to be our ally in this endeavour. McCullum suggested burning the beast, claiming that he already knew everything that was to be learnt from its body, and I wanted to have it brought to the morgue, which McGray at least agreed to under the condition that we’d try to keep all this as hush-hush as possible. I suspect he was afraid to have the case taken away from us, but frankly I doubted anyone would want to touch this mess with a ten-foot pole. That was why our ridiculous department existed, after all.

The next day was as exhausting as the previous one. If I’d thought McGray was an unbearable pain by himself, he was a hundred times worse around a man who shared and fed his delusions. McCullum claimed to be an expert on vampires – and the current head of a century-old organisation that hunted them – and while he didn’t speak like a man who’d received any kind of proper education, he was clearly extremely well-read in the kind of superstitious nonsense McGray ate up greedily. He lectured us on the various types of vampires that supposedly existed, on their powers and the best ways to kill them.

“And kill them you must, if they ever do anything bold enough to attract your attention. There are some that live quiet, peaceful lives and can be ignored, but they’re rare exceptions,” he’d said, and scoffed when I pointed out that, since we were the police, we did not usually execute our suspects, but arrest them. But as far as McCullum was concerned, vampires – or “leeches”, as he kept calling them – were beasts rather than men, even the ones who looked more human than the monster he’d killed on the cemetery.

I quickly grew tired of being around them and feeling my brain rot just from listening to them talk. McGray’s eyes shone brightly with excitement – as far as he was concerned, he was finally getting “proof” that he’d always been right, and he only looked disappointed for a moment when McCullum scoffed at the suggestion that other kinds of magic might exist as well. Apparently it was “only” vampires he believed in, though I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

I took my leave from them around lunch time the next day, and tried not to feel too offended that McGray barely acknowledged my departure. It was a childish sentiment, but I felt almost as if he had replaced me. I was, for better or for worse, his partner after all. We were meant to work our cases together, and despite all our disagreements, we made quite a decent team. As delusional as Nine-Nails was, he was still an intelligent man and exceptionally observant on top of that. And over the past months, ever since my return to Edinburgh, we had even started to get along a little better, even spent time with each other when we did not have to. Yet the moment this Irish ruffian had stepped into our lives, Nine-Nails had all but forgotten that I even existed. It stung more than I cared to admit.

I tried to bury myself in work – actual police work. While they went on about vampires’ hunting habits, I spoke to the victim’s relatives, friends, and neighbours. I tracked down his movements in the days leading to his death and tried my best to find out if anyone had had cause to kill the poor man, especially in such a gruesome manner. To my disappointment, I did not find much. Apparently he’d made a new acquaintance recently, a gentleman moved here from Oxford whose name nobody seemed to know, but I had no luck tracking this stranger down, and either way it seemed quite unlikely that a recent acquaintance would so quickly wish to murder the man.

I did consider another attempt at meeting with Dr Reid – I hoped he was still in town and I would have liked to talk to him, if only to take my mind off the case for a few hours. Yet when I enquired at the University, nobody seemed to know where he was staying, although they did inform me that he was in Edinburgh for a little while longer, as he had another lecture scheduled in a few days. Not leaving a contact address struck me as very strange behaviour, but then Dr Reid had clearly become a little odd in the years we hadn’t seen each other. It was strange. He’d always been perfectly proper and suave when I’d met him, and as a student I may have tried to emulate his mannerisms a little bit after meeting him. As I said, I did quite admire him.

In the end, I returned to my home tired and feeling entirely unaccomplished, and far more maudlin than I would have expected. I would have liked to exchange my notes with Nine-Nails, but I had no doubt he was far too busy with his new friend.

The last thing I expected, when it was already quite late and I was having a last glass of brandy in my upstairs parlour, was the ringing of the door bell and then McGray’s dreadful accent booming from downstairs. Layton didn’t have time to announce him before he blundered into my room. I was glad to see him, or would have been if I hadn’t heard McCullum’s Irish drawl downstairs as Layton showed him into the downstairs parlour. How foolish of me to assume that he would have arrived by himself.

“There you are, Percy! Ye do know we have a case to work on, right? Since ye’re having such a fine evening in.” He scoffed at my comfortable posture on the sofa, whereas he looked as if he still hadn’t slept a wink since the murder.

“I did work our case all day, I’m not sure what you two did in the meantime.” I quickly brought him up to speed on my admittedly meagre findings, but I didn’t think McGray was really listening. He was already completely convinced that an evil vampire had torn up our victim and was far more interested in updating me on _his_ findings.

“Oh, for God’s sake, McGray!” I finally interrupted him when I couldn’t stand his rambling anymore. “I know you have your delusional moments, but this is appalling even for you! We don’t even know this man! Yes, yes, you said you’ve heard of his supposed organisation, but he could be lying about that. At the moment he is the closest thing we have to a suspect and yet you are sharing details of our investigation with him!”

To be quite fair, I didn’t actually believe that McCullum was behind the murders. He did not strike me as the kind of man who would invent a whole belief system about vampires to get away with a crime, especially when it would have been far more convenient for him to try and disappear on us in that first foggy night when we’d met. I believed that he believed in vampires, just like McGray believed in every superstition he got his hands on.

“Och, don’t ye be like that! McCullum is all right, which ye’d know if ye’d actually spoken to the man instead of storming off in a huff because ye don’t like the Irish.”

“Nobody likes the Irish,” I grumbled. “Although in this particular case, his unfortunate origins are hardly the worst things about the man. This nonsense he believes –”

“It’s not believing,” McGray interrupted me. He looked thoughtful for a moment, ran a hand through his messy hair. It didn’t look like he’d washed it in a few days. The strength seemed to have gone out of him for a moment and he sank down heavily into the armchair, his long legs stretched out. “He’s _seen_ those creatures. They killed his family, you know? When he was but a lad.”

I swallowed whatever objections had been on my tongue. Now this explained why McGray had taken to the man so quickly – a shared trauma, and one that had apparently left quite similar scars on McCullum’s soul as it had on McGray’s. 

“He saw it all,” Nine-Nails went on, staring into nothing as he spoke. “Feels like a strange thing to envy a man for, but … there was never any doubt for him. He knew what had happened. What it was that had taken his parents and his brother from him, and then he learnt what could be done to defeat those things. Almost makes it sound simple.”

“Nine-Nails …” I said, a little awkwardly, because I truly did not know what to tell him. I wasn’t devoid of sympathy, for his suffering or for McCullum’s. No man should have to lose their family in such a dreadful way, at such a young age. No man should have to see it happen. But that didn’t make the lies they told themselves to cope with such tragedy any more true.

“Och, don’t tell me we’re just imagining it! Ye looked at that thing in the morgue yerself.”

I bit my tongue.

“Just because I don’t know what it is, or why it looks the way it does, doesn’t mean there isn’t a scientific explanation.”

“Well, ye don’t have to call ‘em vampires, if that doesn’t make ye feel _scientific_ enough, but there’s clearly some kind of beast on the prowl. And if McCullum can help us find it, I’m nae turning him down just because ye’re nagging me about it.”

“Nagging? I simply want this murder to get solved, preferably sooner rather than later! If you want to talk about fairy tales with a strange man you met at a cemetery afterwards, be my guest!” I resented the idea that this was somehow personal and not about his complete lack of professional and intellectual integrity. McGray’s moment of brooding seemed to have passed because he quickly stood up and stepped far closer into my personal space than I really liked. This close it was impossible not to be reminded of just how much taller than me he was, this solid wall of strength right in front of me. I knew I should have made a step backwards, but that would have felt like admitting defeat, and I tried not to think about the heat that went through my body every time he was this close.

“Now listen –” he started, and then we both heard the front door close downstairs. Nine-Nails tensed up and I felt that same unpleasant agitation creeping through my muscles. Not too long ago, we’d both been ripped from our homes rather violently, and it had been hard enough to learn how to relax again at all once I’d found a new house in Edinburgh. I swallowed, and suddenly McGray’s bulk beside me was more comforting than anything else.

He opened the door and we both headed downstairs, and even as we turned the corner into the parlour, I felt myself relax even as my confusion only grew. Because the voice I heard now was both quite familiar, even after all these years, and the last one I would have expected to hear in my house in the middle of the night, addressing this strange vampire hunter as if they were old friends.

“You always make it very hard to find you again, Geoffrey.” That deep, melodious voice that I had listened to religiously as a young man, and sure enough, as I stepped into the parlour, there stood Dr Jonathan Reid. As tall and broad-shouldered as I remembered him, in a beautifully tailored navy suit and a long dark coat that he apparently hadn’t let Layton take.

“You always find me anyhow, Reid,” McCullum replied just as we both came in, and for a moment they shared a strange look – lingering, almost fond, like there were a dozen unsaid secrets in those words. There was something almost intimate about it, as well as about that smile that lingered on Dr Reid’s face for half a second before he turned to face me. I could not imagine how these two men could possibly know each other – maybe McCullum had been a patient of Dr Reid’s, considering his certainly dangerous “profession”, but that would not explain why even that brief glimpse had revealed such closeness. Then again, I supposed McGray and I made an equally strange pair.

As Dr Reid shook my hand, I had to bite back a gasp. Up close he looked even worse than when I’d seen him at the lecture, pale and red-eyed, and his hand was terrible cold. Despite the pallor and his reddened eyes he was still every bit as handsome as I remembered him, though – that strong, aquiline nose that wouldn’t have looked amiss on a Roman emperor, his well-groomed, thick black beard, his long-fingered hands.

“Mr Frey, I do apologise for intruding like this. I didn’t know you were involved in this case, though I had heard that you joined the police.” He was still every bit as magnetic as he’d been back then, and within seconds I found myself not caring all that much about his worrying appearance or the very strange way in which he’d shown up unannounced at my house. “Geoffrey only mentioned your colleague here.”

Dr Reid introduced himself and shook McGray’s hand, and to my surprise McGray managed not to make any rude comments about my “toff friend” or something similar. Gratifyingly, he seemed as dumbfounded by the entire situation as I was. For a few minutes, we all stood there quite awkwardly while Layton brought us refreshments – both McGray and McCullum downed the offered Scotch far more quickly than looked entirely pleasant (not that I drank mine with much more decorum), while Dr Reid politely declined. Again he and McCullum looked at each other as if they barely needed words to communicate, and I couldn’t for the life of me fathom what it was they would be talking about. It seemed as good a place to start as any – after all Dr Reid had apparently come here because he’d been looking for McCullum, and not because he’d wanted to see me.

“You’re here to see Mr McCullum? He’s been … helping Nine-Nails with the case.” I made a face, because he most certainly hadn’t been helping _me_. “May I ask how you two have met?”

Again Dr Reid and McCullum exchanged a look that spoke volumes in a language I didn’t understand, and something like a dark grin crossed McCullum’s features.

“Reid occasionally lends me a hand with my work. There’s some things he’s good for.”

That was far more rude than he’d even been to me so far and I was about to jump to Dr Reid’s defence when I noticed that he was smiling – looking fond, really, as if this was some kind of teasing or banter between them rather than an actual insult. I tried to focus on what McCullum had said rather than how he’d said it, and stared at Dr Reid in confusion.

“His work? Does he have a different occupation that’s less nonsensical than supposedly hunting vampires?”

“Och, who’s being rude now, Percy.” McGray elbowed me in the side and helped himself to another glass of Scotch.

“I don’t blame you for your scepticism,” Dr Reid said to me, and something about his tone made me worry that something was truly and utterly wrong about this entire situation. If anything I would have expected to find an ally in him, no matter his strange connection with this McCullum person. “But I’m afraid questions and explanations will have to wait. I believe I found him, Geoffrey. And you do so hate it when I deprive you of a hunt, so I didn’t interfere.”

Again that intimate tone that spoke of too much familiarity. I felt strangely left out, between whatever it was they shared and McCullum and McGray’s fast-found companionship. Or maybe it was simply the fact that I appeared to be the only sane man in the room.

“Found whom?” I asked. “The person behind this murder? If so, please do tell these two that it isn’t in fact some creature of the night.”

I was about to ask for more explanations – what Dr Reid even had to do with any of this, how he’d found anyone at all when I’d assumed he was in town for a few scientific lectures – but both McCullum and Nine-Nails only reacted with impatience to the news. Even as Dr Reid said, almost apologetically, “I’m afraid not”, McCullum jumped to his feet and was already half out the door. He tried to tell us to stay back, since “this will get dangerous”, but McGray was far too curious to pass up on a chance to see an actual vampire, and I was not going to let these madmen go about their business unsupervised.

I grabbed my coat and hurried after them. There was no carriage waiting outside – presumably both McGray and McCullum as well as Dr Reid had come here in a cab, and if it had been a two-seater, it would have made sense that Dr Reid hadn’t asked it to wait. But he claimed it wasn’t far to where he’d tracked down “the Ekon” – and I thought I must have been drunk to hear him use one of those made-up words I’d heard from McCullum – and so the four of us set out on foot. McCullum wasn’t carrying that enormous sword I’d seen him with the night before, thank God for small mercies, but I saw him check a gun as we walked. McGray didn’t seem any more concerned by that than by the rest of what was going on.

With a few quick steps I caught up to Dr Reid, who was leading the way. I’d only ever seen him in brightly lit ball rooms, parlours, and lecture halls, and there was something strangely unsettling about seeing him in the cold, once again foggy winter streets, his long coat sweeping around him, his face ghostly pale in the moonlight. That feeling that something wasn’t _right_ gnawed at me again, but as he glanced at me, it mellowed out. I had known Dr Reid for years. Whatever else was going on, he was a respectable gentleman.

“Please forgive me if I have a hard time believing any of this,” I said, far more polite than I would have bothered with most other people. “But you are a man of science, Dr Reid. You still are – I heard you speak earlier this week. How can you believe all this madness about vampires and magic and other superstitions?”

At that Dr Reid actually chuckled a little, a deep, quite pleasant sound that warmed me even in the cold winter air.

“I haven’t become superstitious, I assure you. Of course there is no such thing as magic.”

I heard a grumbled objection from McGray behind me, but Dr Reid studiously ignored him and went on.

“But as a man of science, as you say, I must accept empirical evidence. When confronted with new findings, I try to understand rather than deny them.” It sounded sensible enough, of course, but I could not get past the idea of _vampires_.

“And you have found empirical evidence that these creatures exist,” I said sceptically. He gave me an odd look out of those red-tinted eyes – I remembered them being a very handsome blue, as icy as McCullum’s, or McGray’s for that matter – and again I felt like I was missing something, like there was something just at the edge of my awareness that I couldn’t quite grasp, that kept slipping from conscious thought every time I tried to focus on it.

“Quite so,” Dr Reid said. “I’m sure there is a scientific explanation to be found for this condition. For the reason why human beings can turn into such creatures – many of them indeed quite monstrous, as I’m sure Geoffrey here has told you in great detail. I’m very determined to find that reason, though I cannot say that I have made much progress yet.”

“And in the meantime, he occasionally helps me rid the world of the monstrous ones. Which make up the majority of leeches, as much as you don’t like hearing it, Reid,” McCullum said. He’d stepped up to Dr Reid’s other side. It sounded like a repetition of an old argument, and again I found myself reminded of how Nine-Nails and I no doubt sounded a lot of the time. I did understand these days why people accused us of sounding like an old married couple, and McCullum and Dr Reid sounded no less like one.

“In this particular case, I am not arguing with you at all.”

If the last few days had been unpleasant, that was when they went from bad to worse.

* * *

As we turned the next corner, all hell broke loose. Something slammed into me with enough force to make me stumble, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw several creatures jump out of the shadows to attack us. As I struggled against the thing that was attacking me, I heard confusing sounds – snarls and growls and gunshots and screams, but I couldn’t focus on anything but my more immediate problems. I managed to fumble for my gun, but in the dark and the confusion, I didn’t dare shoot it, for fear of hitting one of the others rather than our attackers.

I’d just managed to shove one of those creatures off me when I was grabbed and lifted off my feet with inhuman strength. Long, sharp claws dug into my arms, tearing through the fabric of my thick winter coat and my suit as if it were wet paper before they dug into my skin. I screamed in pain, but when I looked down, I did not see a creature such as the ones that had attacked us at first, but a man. A man with blood-red eyes and long, sharp fangs, and at the end of his sleeves were blackened claws instead of hands. I knew the mind could play tricks on itself in moments of great terror or pain, but I knew without a doubt that I was not imagining this. This wasn’t one of my feverish nightmares, this was real, this horrid mixture of man and beast lifting me into the air, unimpressed by my struggles as if I were nothing but a child. The bloodlust in those eyes tore me out of my stupor for a moment and I renewed my efforts to escape from my attacker’s grasp, but to no avail. I remembered I still had my gun in my hand, but when I aimed it at that thing’s chest and fired, it barely flinched. I hit it, without a doubt, saw the man’s clothes rip open and blood spray from the wound, but it _didn’t flinch_ and it most certainly didn’t let go of me.

And then I plummeted to the floor as something – someone – crashed into my attacker with such force that they both almost fell to the ground. I saw flashes of claws and shadows that seemed to move on their own, I saw another spray of blood and heard a sickening squelch of flesh. As I gathered myself up to a sitting position, I saw that it was Dr Reid, holding my attacker down with impossible ease – and then he bit into the man’s throat, all but ripped it open with his teeth. As if in some kind of trance I watched, watched one of the most renowned surgeons in the country drink the blood from this creature’s neck before he shoved it away and with one clean swipe of claws of his own took off the man’s head. As he turned to me, I saw the claws retract – saw them form back into those slender, strong hands I had watched in more than one anatomy class, those hands I might have had one or two thoughts about that should never be spoken out loud. His teeth were bared – straight and white and entirely flawless if not for the long, protruding fangs. Blood was dripping from them, from his lips, his beard. He looked truly monstrous in that moment, and yet he had saved me, had he not? And as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, not that it really improved the mess, his expression changed back to a more familiar one – of friendly concern and a certain polite aloofness I’d always found so admirable.

“Is everyone all right?” he asked. He didn’t offer me his hand and I was quite glad for it as I scrambled to my feet. My right arm was bleeding profusely, but I could still move it without too much pain, so I did not think the creature had done any serious damage. When I turned my head, I saw McGray, scruffy and dirty from a scuffle on the floor, but to my relief unharmed. Next to him stood McCullum, carefully removing the scarf from his mouth before he sheathed his gun. His expression was less one of shock and more of a kind of wild elation, as if he’d _enjoyed_ this mad fight. 

“So much for hunting them,” he said with a scoff, but he didn’t sound too displeased.

“You all right, Percy?” McGray’s voice was rough as he stepped to my side, his hand pleasantly warm as he took my elbow. He too looked wild, as overwhelmed by the situation as I had been. Empirical evidence, Dr Reid had said. I felt as though I’d just experienced extremely empirical evidence, and I did not like it one bit.

“I will be. What happened here?” I asked, even as I was quite sure I did not wish to hear the answer to my question. There was no answer that wouldn’t shake the world to its very foundation.

“Leeches,” McCullum said with a shrug, as if that was the only explanation anyone needed. As if Dr Reid hadn’t looked every bit as monstrous as the things that had attacked us just a moment ago.

“We should go back,” Dr Reid said, and he sounded quite like himself again. “You should let me tend to that wound before it gets infected.”

I blinked at him in utter confusion, and he smiled – that disarming, charming smile that looked all wrong on his bloodied lips.

“I am still a surgeon, first and foremost.”

“You can trust him,” McCullum said, his words drawing a surprised sideways glance from Dr Reid. He’d put his hand on Dr Reid’s shoulder, squeezed it in a gesture that somehow looked a bit too friendly, a bit too lingering. Another thing that I did not have the wherewithal to think about. “If he were a danger to anyone but other leeches, I would have killed him a long time ago.”

“You did try, if I may remind you,” Dr Reid said, and that too sounded like some old, bickering argument they liked to repeat. As if _trying to kill someone_ was just a funny, amusing anecdote to bring up during half-hearted fights. At least all McGray had done was break my nose, and that had not been entirely his fault.

“Yes, and I would have kept trying if you hadn’t convinced me you’re … well, one of the leeches I can tolerate.” McCullum turned towards me again. “He’ll stitch you up all right, Frey. Stitched me up plenty of times, and he can keep his fangs to himself. I’ll take care of the mess here in the meantime.”

“Are ye sure about that?” McGray finally spoke up. He still looked a little shell-shocked himself, but he hadn’t taken his hand off my arm. I wasn’t sure if the gesture was meant to be steadying or protective, and to my surprised I didn’t mind either way. “Ye said vampires cannae be trusted.”

“Which is why you can believe me when I say he’s the exception to the rule.” McCullum still had his hand on Dr Reid’s shoulder, and for a moment they leant in very close, exchanged a few whispered words and a smile that seemed so strangely private that I looked away in embarrassment.

Just this morning I’d still been so certain that there was a mundane explanation for this. That McGray and his new Irish friend were as delusional as ever, and sooner or later I would get the satisfaction of telling them that they’d been wrong, that there were no blood-sucking monsters, but simply human beings who got depressingly creative about murdering other human beings.

Now I stood between the remains of several blood-sucking monsters, which would have killed me if not for the intervention of another blood-sucking – well, monster did not seem like the right word for my old acquaintance Dr Reid. Even if he was … changed, I still remembered what a kind gentleman he’d always been, how profoundly he had always cared about the lives of his patients. I had heard him speak only a few days ago – that passion had not disappeared. And while I didn’t have a particularly high opinion of this McCullum, the one thing I had no doubt about was that he was entirely devoted to his calling of hunting these things. If he trusted Dr Reid despite his … condition, then I was willing to trust his judgement.

McGray had apparently come to the same conclusion, although he decided to accompany us back to my house, as much as he looked fascinated by the corpses littering the ground around us. If not for my injury, he probably would have stayed back to help McCullum and ask him a million questions.

As it was, he walked by my side, one hand still touching my arm. I didn’t need help to walk – and only a few months ago I would have angrily brushed him off – but these days I found his closeness reassuring. Nine-Nails and I had weathered all sorts of things together, we could weather this. And for all that he was a maniacal madman, he’d also been the most solid presence in my life for almost two years now.

It didn’t take us long to return to my house – we’d never managed to go very far before the attack – but even at this hour, we still passed a few people. I was prepared to have to step in to avoid a commotion as Dr Reid looked truly fearsome with the blood on his face and hands, but to my surprise nobody paid us any mind. They glanced at us, and then their eyes simply slid off him. Did they not see the blood, or his sickly pallor, or his almost gleaming red eyes? Something occurred to me then – that I had not truly _seen_ those things before either. I had noticed them, but my mind had tried so very hard not to, to explain them away, to make them comprehensible.

“Why isn’t anyone staring at you, Dr Reid?” I asked as we turned the corner into my street. “Not to be rude, but you look somewhat conspicuous at the moment.”

“Ah. I suppose it is a natural defence mechanism. I can … keep people from focusing too much on these things. Otherwise it would be much harder to continue my work.”

“What, like hypnosis or something?” McGray asked curiously, looking understandably unsettled.

“Something of the sort, yes. Nothing too strong, just to keep them from wondering about my appearance.”

That seemed to reassure McGray, and either way we had reached my home. Layton was, as always, quite unflappable, even when faced with the sight of myself and Dr Reid covered in blood. He followed Dr Reid’s instructions to fetch warm water, bandages, alcohol and needle and thread, after showing Dr Reid to the bathroom so he could clean himself up. McGray and I took to the downstairs parlour, where he poured both of us a very generous glass of Scotch. I most certainly needed it, and I didn’t blame him at all when he lit a cigarette. I was tempted to ask for one myself, but it didn’t seem too prudent to have a burning cigarette between my lips when I was about to get my wounds stitched up.

“You doing all right there, Percy?” Nine-Nails asked again, something like actual concern in his voice. I didn’t like it.

“That depends. My wounds are not too bad, I think. My mind? I’m not entirely sure I’m not going insane right now.”

“I told you –”

“Oh, do spare me the ‘I told you so’s, Nine-Nails!” I snapped at him. The last thing I needed now, on top of everything else, was for him to feel smug and vindicated. “Even Dr Reid says there is a scientific explanation for what has happened to these creatures we’ve seen, and to … to him, I suppose. Even he says that magic and fairytales don’t exist, so you do _not_ get to claim that you told me so!”

He looked a bit taken aback by my outburst, but then he laughed.

“Fair enough, Percy. Vampires wouldn’t have been my first bet either. But your doctor friend doesn’t know everything, so if vampires exist and nobody knows about them, that only makes it more likely that other things exist as well.”

I refused to dignify that with an answer, or maybe I simply forgot what I had been about to say when McGray stepped closer, knelt down in front of me and started unbuttoning my jacket. He was so very close that I could smell the fresh sweat from the fight on his skin, that I could see every silvery speck in his blue eyes, that my heart caught in my chest for a moment when his strong hands touched me. I had spent far too much time around McGray recently, looking at him, and not always remembering all the reasons why I truly did not like the man, no matter how often we’d saved each other’s lives, no matter how handsome he could be on the rare occasions that he bothered to shave or comb his hair. Maybe I should be grateful that he didn’t bother more often, because it always had the same effect on me as his touch had now.

“Nine-Nails, what are you –”

“He can’t exactly clean your wounds while you’re all dressed up in your fancy clothes, hm? They’re ruined anyway.”

I felt quite stupid for asking now, because of course McGray hadn’t meant anything else by it – least of all in our current situation. I still had to force myself to keep my breathing slow and steady when his warm hands pushed my jacket off my shoulders, moving so very carefully when he pulled the sleeves over my injured arms. He could be oddly gentle for a man his size – something I’d noticed before when I’d seen him speak to scared witnesses, but that I had never expected to feel so acutely in his touch. He continued with my tie – I was certain I could have managed that myself, but I didn’t dare interrupt him, didn’t dare to break the tension between us in that moment, as if I feared what I might do if I did. What he might do, when he glanced up at me with parted lips, and for a moment I almost thought I was not alone in my entirely inappropriate thoughts.

But then he focused on the task at hand again: undid the knot and removed the tie, pushed my braces off my shoulders and let his warm hands brush over my clothed chest as he did, and then he unbuttoned my shirt as well, his calloused fingers finally brushing over my heated skin. It didn’t feel quite accidental when he touched me again and again as he took off the stained, torn shirt with the same consideration as my jacket before, leaving me sitting there in my undershirt. It wasn’t cold in the parlour, not with a comforting fire burning, but I still shivered under his unfaltering gaze, under the light brush of his hands over my upper arms.

“Ye’re gonna be all right,” he mumbled in a low voice, and I got the impression that he was talking to himself more than me. Again our eyes met and I thought about reaching out for him, getting my hands into that dreadful, wild hair of his and pulling him close and – doing so many things I should most certainly never do, least of all while someone else was in the house. Fortunately, before the blood loss and the shock of tonight could get to my head, McGray let go of me and got to his feet.

A few moments later Dr Reid knocked lightly on the open door and stepped inside. I tried not to wonder for how long he’d been standing there and how much of that strange interaction he’d witnessed. The mere idea made me flush. I still admired him, and I was quite proud of the fact that I had never let on just how much I thought about him back in my student days – the last thing I needed was for him to assume I was some sort of pervert.

He looked much more like himself again. There was still blood on his clothes, but he’d cleaned his hands and his face, and I only noticed now that he didn’t smile quite like he used to anymore. Oh, it was still a friendly and really quite reassuring smile, but he didn’t bare his teeth. Knowing that he was hiding fangs behind his lips truly made me appreciate that. Layton followed on his heel with the supplies Dr Reid had asked for and set everything out on the table, while Dr Reid sat down next to me to take a look at my right arm.

Before he started working, he glanced at my face and hesitated.

“I feel like I should apologise for the deception – to both of you,” he added with a nod to McGray, who was standing behind the couch and watching him intently. “I had hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary to reveal that particular unpleasant fact about myself, especially since I was sure Geoffrey had already shared with you in great detail just how dangerous ‘my kind’ is.”

“Doesn’t look like he was wrong about that,” Nine-Nails said belligerently, and once again it occurred to me that he was being protective. I bit back a smile, despite the absurd situation.

“No, he isn’t. Priwen often does necessary work, even if they occasionally get distastefully enthusiastic about it. Like most men with power, many Ekons abuse it, and their way of abusing it leads to countless deaths. I only wish to continue my work, and Geoffrey understands that.”

With that he gently took my arm and I shuddered under his touch – in that moment it was truly because his skin felt so very cold, and not because once upon a time the idea of having Jonathan Reid touch my bare arm would have made me blush like a maiden. It had been years since what might have been a bit of infatuation with the man, and right now I was mostly reeling from tonight’s revelations. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but notice how close he was to me – far closer in my personal space than he’d ever been in before. I couldn’t make myself watch him work, though, even as I appreciated the skill with which he cleaned the wound and then started stitching the long scratches.

“So how did ye become something like that?” Nine-Nails asked, and I wondered if this was merely curiosity, or an attempt at distracting me from the pain. I wished I’d had a second glass of Scotch before this.

“It’s an infection of sorts. Caused by ingesting even the smallest amount of a vampire’s blood. If you ever have the misfortune of running into these creatures again, you should make very sure to avoid that. That’s why Geoffrey usually covers his mouth when he fights them.” 

I flinched when he threaded the needle through my skin again. When I glanced down at my arm, the stitches looked impressively neat and regular, and Dr Reid’s hands were so nimble when he tied off the thread. I saw his nostrils flare for a moment – the scent of blood, I realised belatedly, but without any hesitation he continued with the shallower scratches on my other arm.

“An infection.” McGray sounded sceptical. He’d stepped closer and put his hand on the backrest of the sofa, resting right beside my shoulder, though careful not to touch me.

“Yes. I don’t understand yet how exactly it works, but I aim to find out. It’s certainly not magic, if that’s what you’re asking, Detective McGray. It is a strange natural phenomenon that science cannot explain yet, just as there are a great many other things about the human body and the world at large that we don’t fully understand. Hopefully one day we will.”

I didn’t trust my voice not to sound embarrassingly high while Dr Reid worked on my second wound, but I did half turn to give McGray a triumphant look. He didn’t look convinced, but when had Nine-Nails ever let rational thought stand between himself and all the superstitions he wanted to believe.

“Is that how Geoffrey sees it, too?” he asked.

My victorious feeling soured a little. I wasn’t aware that they were apparently on first-name basis now. They’d only known each other for a few days! Dr Reid smiled, fondly I thought, and not for the first time I wondered just what kind of relationship these two had. I didn’t like the idea of suspecting a gentleman like Dr Reid of anything sordid, let alone with a thug like that, but they did seem to be unusually close, and Dr Reid had never married, despite having been past forty even before his strange, though now explained, disappearance from polite society.

“Geoffrey is a very single-minded man, and a practical one at that. He doesn’t care why vampires exist, he cares about stopping them. He doesn’t care what else might be out there, as long as it’s not killing people.” He glanced up from his work, his voice quite sympathetic as he met McGray’s eyes. “If you were hoping for more answers than that, I’m afraid neither of us can offer them at present.”

I couldn’t see McGray’s face right now, but it was easy to imagine his unhappy expression. In a way he’d received the confirmation he’d been looking for his whole life – that there were things out there that one might call supernatural, and if vampires existed, then who said demons and devils and magic didn’t? I was sure that’s how he’d eventually choose to see it. But at the same time, he’d clearly hoped for a more satisfying answer to all his questions than Dr Reid’s quite reassuring scientific scepticism.

“How did you two meet?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the pain of my wounds. Dr Reid was finishing up the stitches, washed his hands again in the basin of warm water, and dried them before he started bandaging my forearms. “He hardly strikes me as the company you usually keep.”

“No, he really isn’t.” Dr Reid smiled that fond smile again, and I felt a strange pang that could have been either envy or jealousy. “But when you share enough secrets with a man, a certain closeness develops sooner or later, whether you expect it or not. You two hardly make a usual pair either.”

Something about the way he looked at me when he said that made me want to disappear into thin air, but the moment passed and then all he was focused on was the bandages.

“You were quite lucky, the wounds weren’t too deep. If I’m still in town, I can pull the threads myself when it’s time, otherwise any other doctor can take care of that.”

“How long are you staying in Edinburgh?” I made a face. “Not that I would blame anyone for wanting to leave this dreadful place as quickly as possible, but I was hoping we could meet again when nobody is trying to kill us.”

“We could,” Dr Reid agreed with an easy smile. For a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of his fangs between his teeth, and then I felt terribly rude for staring. “I’ll still be here for a few more days. Anything more than that, I’ll have to confer with Geoffrey.”

He got to his feet before I could reply or ask any questions about the fact that they apparently travelled together. It shouldn’t have surprised me after everything, but somehow Dr Reid’s brazen admission that they did still shocked me a little.

“Speaking of, I should go and check on him before he finds himself another fight or three.”

I was still a little dazed – though whether it was the blood loss, the shock, the fact that _vampires existed_ or standing between Dr Reid and McGray when we got up, with both of them a little too close – when he bid us good night and, just a minute later, was gone from my house. I briefly wondered if I would truly see him again or if he would simply disappear as quickly out of my life as he’d reappeared in it. At least I finally knew why his social life had found such an abrupt end. I imagined it wasn’t too easy to attend dinner parties if one didn’t eat dinner anymore.

I sank back onto the couch, drained and quite exhausted. McGray, who for all his other faults knew the value and importance of good drinks, refilled our glasses and rather gracelessly sat down next to me, one hand worrying at his unruly hair. I gulped down half my Scotch and leant back. We sat quite close, I only noticed then, but I couldn’t quite find the strength to move away from him.

“Vampires,” he said after a minute or two.

“So it seems. Good grief, this is ridiculous!”

“Och, don’t complain, Percy. Yer friend keeps insisting it is nae magic, so ye can continue to be in denial about everything else there is out there.”

“Everything you _claim_ is out there and for which we still haven’t seen any evidence,” I grumbled. An old, familiar argument. I wondered if that was what Dr Reid and McCullum were doing, going through familiar old lines when the world around them made so little sense. Nine-Nails made a dismissive gesture and lit another cigarette, and when I held out my hand, he handed it to me.

“Last one I got on me,” he explained, and after a moment’s hesitation I accepted it anyway and drew in a lungful of smoke. At least it calmed my nerves. Quite medicinal, really. Maybe I should follow up with a cigar, just to make this evening somewhat less miserable. I passed the cigarette back to McGray after another drag on it, and we shared it like that in silence, both of us quietly ignoring the intimacy of it, of our lips touching the same thing mere seconds apart.

“So how close are you and this Reid fellow?” McGray asked when he put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table. Something about his tone was … insinuating things I most certainly did not want insinuated.

“Not very,” I replied. “We knew each other socially back in London and we met a few times at Oxford. But I wouldn’t go as far as saying we were friends.”

“How about anything else?” Now McGray’s smirk was downright filthy.

“I’ll thank you not to imply such things about either Dr Reid or myself,” I said primly, but when I tried to get to my feet to extract myself from this really rather embarrassing conversation, McGray touched my elbow again – on my bare skin this time, and I shuddered to a halt. Where Dr Reid’s hand had been icy cold, McGray’s was so very warm and strangely comforting. I moved a little into it, closer to the solid warmth of his body next to me. Suddenly I felt quite cold, even in the pleasant warmth of the room. Cold and exhausted and confused, and in all that my unwelcome thoughts about McGray were almost familiar.

“What’s your point, Nine-Nails?” I asked. I didn’t meet his eyes when he ran his warm palm up my arm, all the way to my shoulder. Touching me as gently as he had before, and a very stupid part of me wanted nothing more than to melt into that caress.

“I’m just saying ye might have a type, Percy. Tall, strong, dark-haired … handsome.” He grinned, that confident grin that was, unfortunately, very handsome indeed.

“I most certainly don’t know what you’re getting at. Not about him, and if you meant to describe yourself, Nine-Nails, then –”

I quite forgot what else I’d been about to say because suddenly he was even closer than before, one hand remaining on my shoulder and the other cupping my cheek. Before I knew what I was doing, I was leaning into that touch. God, but it felt so good after all the stumbling around of the past few days.

“Hush, Percy,” McGray said, his voice dropping to a low tone that almost made me forgive him for that nickname I so loathed. “Good thing about me is ye don’t care about impressing me. Bet ye never dared to let him assume anything _inappropriate_ about you.”

It wasn’t true that I didn’t care what McGray thought of me – not anymore, I’d realised that at some point over the past few months, even as I’d more and more stopped caring what anyone else thought of me. But he was right that I didn’t _admire_ him the way I had Dr Reid, and that made it so, so much easier to close my eyes and allow McGray to fit his lips against mine. Dr Reid had been somewhat of a boyish fantasy, a man I wanted to be like even as I desired his company and his respect, but we’d never been all that close after all. McGray was far more real – solid, steady even in his strangeness, the only constant my life still had left. And at the same time a mad thrill went through my whole body when he kissed me so deeply it took the air from my lungs.

He grabbed a fistful of my hair as he did, pulled on it ever so lightly until I gasped against his lips. I had never truly thought about kissing McGray – about touching him, about him touching me, about feeling the bulk of his body pressing me down into silken sheets while he moved against me, but not so much about his lips. In that moment, I didn’t think I would ever be able to think about anything else but McGray kissing me, with that same intense dedication with which he pursued all things that mattered to him – and wasn’t that a strange thought, that I had become one of those things?

My breath was racing by the time our lips parted, McGray’s hand still in my hair and the look in his eyes wild even as he pulled back a little bit, resisting when I grabbed his shoulder to make him come back.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea right now, after … everything,” he said haltingly. His hesitation should have hurt, since he’d been the one to kiss me in the first place, but it helped that he didn’t look like he wanted to stop at all. He was merely giving me a chance to back out, which I might have appreciated if backing out hadn’t been the last thing on my mind.

“Nine-Nails, nothing about this would _ever_ be a good idea.” I didn’t even know where to begin with all the reasons why this was quite possibly the worst idea I’d ever had, and the fact that I’d just found out that vampires existed didn’t even make it near the top of that list. Would I regret this in the morning? Most likely, but I also had a feeling it would be worth it despite that.

I mirrored his movement and ran my fingers through his tangled hair, felt how thick it was in my grasp, and this time he didn’t resist when I yanked on it lightly to bring him closer again. I had no illusions about being able to move McGray against his will – for all that I was hardly short or weak, McGray could certainly make me feel like both – but this time he obliged me and more, wrapped his free arm around my waist and all but hoisted me into his lap as he kissed me again. It wasn’t a good idea, but it felt heavenly, and somehow it still made more sense than the entire insanity of the past few days. At least the week didn’t have to end in the worst possible way.

* * *

I did see Dr Reid two more times over the next few days. I attended his second lecture – this time blissfully without any interruptions by McGray, murderous vampires or simply murderous criminals – and we spent a lovely, late evening afterwards catching up on the past few years. I still found him charming, but with the memory of McGray’s hands on my body, it was easier to forget just how drawn I’d been to Dr Reid all those years ago. Instead I was more focused on just how strange he looked, and it was hard to believe that I’d ever managed to attribute his changed appearance to a more mundane illness. He pulled the stitches in my arms a few days later, and although the wounds still needed time to heal fully, I could already tell that they wouldn’t scar too badly. One of the upsides of having an excellent surgeon, I supposed.

Dr Reid was still a little cagey about his association with Geoffrey McCullum, although he did mention that McCullum had spent their time in Edinburgh hunting down this “Ekon’s” remaining associates – said Ekon had apparently been our victim’s new acquaintance from Oxford, which did make me feel vindicated that my own research had not been entirely meaningless, after all. McGray had accompanied McCullum, the two of them still getting along far too well for my taste, but this too had become a little easier to bear, when McGray joined me for breakfast in the mornings after his nights out hunting with McCullum – and on most of these days, I returned to bed after a hearty breakfast, just not by myself. What had been a terrible idea became a habit worryingly fast, and I tried not to think too much about the fact that we would of course have to stop doing this, sooner or later. Just not yet.

In the end they left Edinburgh exactly ten days after I’d first seen Dr Reid again, and I decided to see them off at the train station. McGray wasn’t there – it was his scheduled day to visit Pansy, and he’d apparently said his goodbyes to McCullum earlier that day. Despite everything that had happened, I wasn’t all that sad to see the Irishman go.

They had tickets for the last train of the day, which already left in darkness at this time of year. I imagined that travelling had to be far more complicated for Dr Reid during summer. When I arrived at the station, I saw them both waiting on the platform, with a considerable amount of luggage – I imagined that half of it was probably McCullum’s weapons, especially that one unusually long suitcase, long enough to hide that two-handed sword of his. As I watched them from afar, I noticed not for the first time that they stood far too close, as if personal space didn’t mean much between them. Dr Reid had his hand on the small of McCullum’s back as they leant their heads close and spoke to each other, and I saw a private, almost tender smile on McCullum’s features that didn’t fit the gruff, serious expressions I’d seen on him before.

The gesture was just on this side of what was still acceptable between two friends, but it nevertheless looked _unusually_ close. Again I didn’t want to suspect Dr Reid of anything so tasteless, but the thought still occurred to me. Yet nobody seemed to pay them any mind. I suspected Dr Reid’s abilities – if he could make sure nobody wondered about his strange appearance, then there was no reason he couldn’t also ensure that nobody looked too closely at his strange friendship with McCullum. It seemed quite useful, considering my recent, more intimate association with McGray.

When Dr Reid saw me approach, he exchanged another few words with McCullum, who only gave me a brief nod from afar, and then walked over to me.

“Back to London then?” I said by way of greeting as I shook his hand.

“Yes, I don’t like leaving my hospital to its own devices for too long and Geoffrey said Edinburgh is quite safe again, at least in this particular regard,” Dr Reid said with a brief smile. It was reassuring that one thing hadn’t changed – his main focus was still on his work, even if he apparently helped McCullum hunt vampires sometimes. Despite having seen it with my own two eyes, it was so very strange to think about a gentleman and scholar like Dr Reid in a fight. “If you’re ever back home in London to visit your family, you should call on me. It was a pleasant change, to speak to someone who … well, who’s aware of my condition. I hardly enjoy keeping secrets from everyone I meet.”

“No, I quite understand. Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the absurd things that keep happening to Nine-Nails and me, even when nothing supernatural is involved.” It did make talking to other people oddly hard at times, or maybe it just made talking to McGray easier – all these things we shared with each other and with nobody else.

Dr Reid gave me a rather serious, thoughtful look, and I already feared what he was about to say before he spoke.

“He seems very fond of you, your colleague. In his own way.” He smiled. “Some men have more indirect ways of showing their affection.”

I didn’t want to say anything – nor comment on the idea that McGray was _fond_ of me, which only made me think about him sighing “lassie” into my ear in a downright tender tone while he cradled my face in his hands – but despite myself I glanced over at McCullum. I remembered his rude tone towards Dr Reid, the acerbic teasing between them, even as they seemed to understand each other with the briefest looks.

Dr Reid followed my gaze and smiled to himself.

“I know what I’m talking about,” he said and chuckled.

“You two are quite … close,” I said awkwardly, certainly not asking anything untoward and most certainly not expecting a response, but I still flushed and looked away.

“Quite. Which is how I know that the person you become closest to is often the person you would least expect. There’s nothing wrong with letting that happen.”

He was looking at me in a way that felt far too knowing, though at least he didn’t seem to suspect that I had already let quite a few things happen that I shouldn’t have, merely that I wanted to. I avoided his gaze and swallowed.

“I don’t even like McGray all that much,” I said, and while that wasn’t entirely a lie, it also wasn’t really true anymore either.

“Do you think I like Geoffrey on most days? He doesn’t always make it easy.” Dr Reid laughed, a soft sound that was strangely full of affection. I was glad that we were standing to the side, out of earshot of any passers-by, when he added more seriously, “One of the more medically useful abilities my condition has given me is that I can see people’s heartbeats, and yours speeds up every time your colleague enters the room.”

I felt my flush deepen, but Dr Reid interrupted me as soon as I opened my mouth to assure him that I most certainly did not know what he was implying.

“Please, Ian, it’s hardly a worse secret to have than drinking blood.” His smile was disarming and actually reassuring – and apparently I had been right after all in my suspicion that he and McCullum were a little too intimate. I still couldn’t bring myself to admit it. He reached out to squeeze my shoulder, and as he did, he added with a secretive little smile, “For what it’s worth, so does Detective McGray’s. His heartbeat, that is.”

For all that I was obviously already aware that McGray desired my company as much as I his, at least in this specific way, I still couldn’t quite help the smile that pulled at the corners of my mouth. There was something flattering about the confirmation that all this affected McGray every bit as much as me, even as the heat stayed in my cheeks at the very idea that anyone else even suspected such a thing about me. But Dr Reid very obviously did not think me a pervert for it, and he squeezed my shoulder again just as the train arrived at the station in a cloud of noise and steam. He made a step backwards, and I took a moment to school my features again.

“Ah, well, I – thank you for your … understanding, I suppose,” I said, trying to sound as if we hadn’t been discussing such an embarrassing matter. I offered him my hand again. “Dr Reid.”

“Of course,” he said as he shook it. “And I shall insist on ‘Jonathan’ when we see each other again, Ian. Do take care of yourself, and of your friend.”

I watched him return to McCullum, watched the way they moved in each other’s space with that quiet ease that came with intense familiarity, and watched them both disappear on the train. I was still reeling from the absurdity of talking about any of this, but I couldn’t quite stop smiling. The last few days hadn’t been so bad, after all, and clearly there were some men who managed to make this sort of thing work. Even respectable men like Dr Reid.

The noise of the train starting up again as it left the station tore me out of my thoughts. It was getting late, and McGray had invited me to join him for dinner tonight. I never said no to getting a taste of Joan’s cooking again, but for once that was far from the only reason why I was glad to visit him. We had nowhere to be in the morning, unless any unexpected cases came up, and I was in fact discovering that McGray had a few very interesting ways of expressing his affection. Maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t have to stop doing this quite so soon.


End file.
